


Homecoming

by RaeDMagdon



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AI shepard, Control Ending, F/F, Happy Ending, Mind Meld, N7 Day, Reunion, Vanilla, clone shepard - Freeform, control Shepard, melding, smut with feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:58:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8499679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeDMagdon/pseuds/RaeDMagdon
Summary: Shepard makes good on her promise to come back, but Liara is uncertain... until Shepard offers to prove that it's really her.(Or: the one in which Control!Shepard gets her consciousness downloaded into a new clone body).





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy N7 Day! Please follow me on tumblr @raedmagdon if you haven't already.

_I knew it was you the first time I touched you again._

Liara had first whispered those words to Shepard at Chronos Station, in the final hours before the death and rebirth of the universe.

She had meant them.

When Shepard had walked through her office door on Illium after two years apart, Liara's heart had swelled with hope even as her mind analyzed the situation from every angle, seeking out flaws. This couldn't be Shepard, she'd told herself. Shepard—the real Shepard—was dead. She had seen the remains before handing them over to Operative Lawson. Even the messages from Cerberus declaring the Lazarus Project a success hadn't been enough to convince her.

But then they had kissed.

Liara had circled the desk and framed Shepard's face in her hands and, after a moment of hesitation, she had tasted the stranger's lips—partially out of curiosity, but mostly because some part of her had wanted to believe. It was the same part of her that had seen Shepard emerge triumphant after the destruction of Sovereign, striding unharmed over the rubble.

As soon as their lips met, Liara knew. This was Shepard. The real Shepard, not some clone or a shell of a body driven by an AI. This was the Shepard she had loved, the Shepard she had lost, the Shepard she had longed for so deeply that it still hurt every minute of every day.

When they had kissed, everything had fallen into place.

That was why, as she watched 'Shepard' step into the barren room of the private medical ward, Liara felt a curious sense of familiarity. Déjà vu, Shepard had told her once, but Liara still thought the asari phrase better captured the feeling's essence: 'The ghosts of the universe are calling'.

And Shepard did look every bit a ghost. The way she moved was the same, right down to her businesslike, long-legged stride. So was her shape. Liara had run her hands along Shepard's body more than enough times to recognize it. Whoever had made this new one had done an excellent job. It looked highly realistic.

As Shepard drew nearer, closing the gap between them, Liara saw that her face was an exact copy as well. The galaxy of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the subtle scar through her eyebrow—it was all there. Nothing was forgotten. When Shepard smiled at her, a tender smile Liara knew from the precious nights they'd spent wrapped in each other's arms, even that was an echo from the past. It was perfect right down to the dimples.

Liara's heart ached with uncertainty. If this wasn't really Shepard...if it was only some half-hearted clone grown in a tank with haunting ripples of the woman she had lost installed within its brain...she wasn't sure how she would survive. She didn't know if she could bear to look at a mere reflection of her lover's face while the real Shepard was dead.

But then Shepard came to a stop in front of her. Shepard reached out to take her hands, the exact same gesture she had used during their reunion on Mars. And in a voice that made Liara's heart stutter, Shepard said, "I promised you I would always come back."

Liara's eyes welled with tears. She hadn't thought she would cry. She had cried herself out too many times already, mourning the loss of her bondmate while the rest of the galaxy celebrated. But as she stared at Shepard in stunned silence, unable to speak a single word, letting this strange version of her lover hold her hands, the soft clearing of a throat from behind them distracted her.

Two figures were standing in the doorway, familiar faces behind Shepard's shoulder. There was Admiral Hackett, dressed in Alliance blues with his beard more white than grey, and beside him was Miranda Lawson, wearing a lab coat far less skintight than her usual attire.

"Doctor T'Soni," Admiral Hackett said with a respectful nod. "I'm sorry for startling you. She insisted on coming in first."

"Insisted..." Liara let go of 'Shepard's' hands, taking a cautious step back.

"She was very adamant," Miranda Lawson said.

"So, she's unshackled," Liara said, glancing over at 'Shepard' once more.

'Shepard' frowned. "I'm not just an AI, Liara. It's me."

 _But you're—it's not,_ Liara's mind said. _I saw the Citadel explode. Your body was burned alive and some part of your brain was put into those...things._ She didn't even want to think the Reapers' names. Others, the quarians and salarians in particular, were eager for the extra help to rebuild, but she took the krogan point of view. The only good Reaper was a dead Reaper.

"We've done extensive testing," Miranda said. "Testing she wasn't happy about, of course. Even I wasn't convinced at first, but this is Shepard, just inside a new body." She paused, as if she wasn't sure whether to continue. "She threatened to leave before we completed our examinations because of her eagerness to find you. That's when I knew."

Liara still couldn't speak. Her lips merely trembled. She stared at Shepard, hot tears rolling down her cheeks, shaking her head in disbelief. It felt like some kind of cruel joke. This was Shepard, but it couldn't be.

"Perhaps we should leave the Commander and Doctor T'Soni alone," Admiral Hackett said.

"Please," Shepard said, and once more, the familiar pitch and tone of her voice struck a chord within Liara. She wasn't sure whether the hurt or hope it caused was worse.

Instead of replying to Shepard, Miranda looked at Liara, pale blue eyes burning. "The war is over, Doctor T'Soni. Not every good thing has to disappear." She ducked out of the room after Admiral Hackett, letting the doors hiss shut behind her.

That left Liara alone with Shepard. Or, at least, the impostor that looked like Shepard. She wasn't sure yet, just as she wasn't sure of anything else.

"Liara..." Shepard reached out for her again, then seemed to reconsider. There was hurt in her eyes, hurt that was all too human, and a lump rose in Liara's throat.

"Do you remember Chronos Station?" Liara blurted out before her words could leave again. "Do you remember what I told you when you asked how I knew you weren't an AI?"

Shepard's eyes bored into Liara's with even more intensity than Miranda Lawson's. "You said you knew it was me the first time you touched me again." She breathed in—something Liara wasn't sure she was comfortable with. Robots didn't need to breathe.

"Stop...stop making it do that," she muttered, unable to look away. With each breath Shepard took, she felt panic rising in her gut.

“Making it do what? Liara…”

Shepard took her hand again, and all of Liara’s instincts screamed at her to jerk away. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t let go. No matter how much she wanted to, and no matter how afraid she was of this not-quite-Shepard, she couldn’t let go. She hadn’t been able to let go two years ago no matter how hard she’d tried, and she couldn’t let go now.

“You chose to control the Reapers, Shepard. My bondmate never would have done that.”

Once more, Shepard appeared wounded. “The other choices were worse. If I’d destroyed them, I would have had to destroy EDI and the geth too—I didn’t want to pay that price. If I’d blended synthetics and organics together, I would have taken away everyone’s free will...changed the whole galaxy and made everyone the same. This was my only option—”

Liara shook her head. Her thoughts were spinning in circles and she couldn’t understand half of what Shepard was saying. “Shepard, you aren’t making sense. What are you talking about?”

“Let me show you,” Shepard insisted. “Please, Liara. Let me prove it’s me."

At first, Liara didn't understand. Shepard's words were like the wash of waves in her ears and her eyes were blurred with her tears. But when Shepard cupped her cheek, wiping the dripping trails away with the pad of her thumb, it clicked. Shepard wanted to meld with her.

"You don't know what you're asking," Liara said in a shaking whisper. "You don't know—"

"I do," Shepard said, continuing to brush her tears away. "I've felt it, Liara. I know how scared you are, but I'm asking anyway, because I can't bear to lose you again. Touch me. Touch me so you can know me."

It was tempting. So incredibly tempting. Shepard sounded the same, looked the same, even smelled the same beneath the sterile scent of the laboratory. Liara didn't know how that was possible—perhaps it was wishful thinking and her memory was playing tricks on her.

"I have no idea whether this will even work. Asari attempts to meld with artificial intelligences have always failed—"

Shepard leaned forward, resting their foreheads together. "This body has genetic components too. Cerberus had my DNA on file from the clone incident. Just try."

That explained several things, the breathing and the smell, but Liara still harbored doubts. "Your brain..."

"It's a downloaded copy from the Reapers," Shepard admitted. "But it's a really good copy. I remember you, Liara. I remember everything. I remember all those little blue children we were supposed to have..."

Liara tried to tell Shepard to stop, but all that came out was a sob. She didn't even know all the reasons she was crying. For Shepard, for the life they had never shared together, for the duties and obligations they had always been forced to put before each other. And here was 'Shepard', or something close at least, asking to meld with her and share her pain.

It was something the real Shepard would have done.

When Liara reached out, it was in desperation. Her heartbreak was too heavy to carry alone. She needed Shepard—and she was willing to try anything.

The moment their minds touched, she knew.

This was Shepard.

Shepard—different, but the same.

Shepard—strong and brave and familiar, but also impossibly vast, like the far reaches of space.

This Shepard was still Shepard, but also an endless ocean of stars reaching out in all directions. This Shepard could touch every corner of the galaxy. This Shepard threatened to swallow Liara up—could have swallowed her—but it didn't. The vast universe of Shepard simply waited with open arms, ready to embrace her.

 _This is Siari,_ Liara thought. _One small part of the whole._

Shepard had become something more than Shepard, but she hadn't vanished. She was still there, amplified in a hundred thousand ways. And through the vastness came a feeling, a bright glowing heartbeat like the birth of a brand new star from the dust of an old one.

Liara clung to it with all her might. Shepard had kept her promise. Shepard had come back.

 _I told you I would,_ the universe of Shepard said. _I could never leave you, Liara. It's my turn to write your name in the stars._

And Liara surrendered to hope at last, her tears dissolving into more specks of starlight. She said the same words she had spoken while Ashley Williams dragged her back onto the Normandy, words she meant just as much now as she had meant them then. _Shepard...I am yours._

The thrumming cord around them drew tighter and tighter, binding them together. Distantly, in the 'real' world, Liara could feel Shepard's lips on hers, could feel her own hands searching for the hem of Shepard's uniform shirt. But this galaxy-of-Shepard was far more immersive than their physical reality anyway. Liara grasped at stars instead of Shepard's skin and gazed into glowing, blue-green planets that reminded her of Shepard's eyes on an even grander scale. Pink and purple storms swirled around her, dotted with the white pinpricks of far-off suns.

She was holding the entire universe in her arms.

Every inch of her body burned, but the fire was beautiful. She was consumed, overwhelmed—but surrounded by Shepard, she wasn't afraid. She allowed Shepard entrance to her body as well as her soul, and the love she received in return was no different than the love she had felt every other time they'd melded. She didn't even need to draw from Shepard's consciousness any longer. It washed over her instead, carrying her like the waves of an endless ocean.

Somewhere far away, Liara saw their bodies entwined. They were a constellation of stars, stripped naked and lying on sheets of velvet black sky, legs overlapping, lips joined. They were the entire universe, but also a small universe of their own—a universe where there was only room for two bodies and one heart.

Once, she had dreamed of flying away with Shepard on a single ship. She had dreamed of leaving the war behind. She had dreamed of being selfish, of stealing a few precious years of happiness before the inevitable end. Now, there was no need. Shepard had carved out a place just for them. A place where nothing existed but love.

That love began to swell and surge, shifting endlessly, rushing out in all directions. Space looked cold and distant from the inside of a ship, but Liara was swiftly realizing that it was warm and alive. There was nothing still about it. It always moved, constantly expanding, pounding with its own heartbeat. Or perhaps it was her heartbeat? Liara couldn't tell.

At last, they reached their apex. Everything pulsed faster and faster, the whirling vortex of quasars and the movement of Shepard's hand, the shuddering of Liara's body and the quivering of the very fibers that strung the galaxy together. Shepard was inside her, all around her, in everything she touched and tasted and breathed. At last, the hole in her heart was filled: filled with the entire universe, but all she'd needed to heal it was one person.

Shepard.

Eventually, they parted. Liara drifted back into her body, finding herself tucked safely into Shepard's arms. They were sprawled on the floor, of all places, even though there were perfectly good chairs and even a medical cot in the room. But even as the meld ended, Liara wasn't alone within herself. A piece of Shepard remained inside of her—perhaps a piece that had been there all along.

"Is this...okay?" Shepard asked, looking at her with the same sparkling green eyes Liara had fallen in love with years ago. "Is the new me...enough?"

"Shepard," Liara said, stroking through the silky strands of Shepard's hair. She had to use her left hand, since her right was still buried somewhere inside of Shepard's slacks. "You are always enough for me. You always will be. Am I...am I enough for the new you?"

Shepard smiled at her—a smile Liara would never tire of no matter how many times she saw it.

"Liara, you're the reason I still exist. You're the reason I came back. All of this...it was for you. Everything I was and everything I am now is for you."

"For us," Liara murmured. A new shower of tears came, but this time, she didn't try to hold them in. She buried her face in the crook of Shepard's shoulder, sobbing for joy. Shepard had indeed written her name in the stars, but that couldn't compare to simply holding Shepard in her arms.


End file.
